


The Plan

by Nerdychild19



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrinette, Chameleon - Freeform, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Lila is a bitch, Post-Episode: s03 Caméléon | Chameleon, class doesn't appreciate Marinette, eventually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 03:10:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17973344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nerdychild19/pseuds/Nerdychild19
Summary: "The way Marinette reacted to Lila’s threat had surprised her. Lila had expected Marinette would respond the same way she had all day: flustered, angry, and overall, pathetic.But that wasn’t how it played out. Marinette had decided to take the high road or something, and wouldn’t give Lila the response she needed to carry out her plan.Which just mean she needed a new plan. Something more subtle, so Marinette wouldn’t even see it coming.It would require more thought and planning, but that was ok. Lila enjoyed a challenge."A fic where Lila gets crafty in her plan to destroy Marinette Dupain-Cheng.





	1. Chapter One

The way Marinette reacted to Lila’s threat had surprised her. Lila had expected Marinette would respond the same way she had all day: flustered, angry, and overall, pathetic. Lila would’ve twisted her response to chip away at their classmate’s trust in Marinette, and done the same thing every day until the whole class saw her as an irrational, jealous bitch and Lila as the sweet angel they all knew her to be. It would’ve been painfully simple, and Lila couldn’t wait.

But that wasn’t how it played out. Marinette had decided to take the high road or something, and wouldn’t give Lila the response she needed to carry out her plan.

Which just mean she needed a new plan. Something more subtle, so Marinette wouldn’t even see it coming.

It would require more thought and planning, but that was ok. Lila enjoyed a challenge.

* * *

 

She started her plan 2 weeks after she returned to school. It had almost killed her to wait this long, but she needed to make sure the student’s trust in her was secure before she started destroying the reputation of their most well liked classmate. 

It was a quiet morning at Françoise Dupont. There hadn’t been an Akuma attack in a few days, and Adrien hadn’t come out with a new ad or magazine spread, so there was really nothing to gossip about. Lila took a moment to appreciate this before making her way to Mylene’s locker, where Mylene herself was gathering her books for the day. Lila pasted a smile on her face.

“Bonjour Mylene!”

Mylene looked up, her face brightening. “Bonjour Lila! How was your weekend?”

“My weekend was great, how was yours!”

Her expression softened as she recalled. “Oh, it was wonderful. Ivan and I…”

Lila tuned her out. There was no reason she needed to listen to this lovesick retelling of what Mylene was describing as “a fairytale date”. She was here for one reason and one reason only: destroying Marinette Dupain-Cheng. She tuned back in when it seemed like Mylene was reaching the end of her story. “... It was really amazing.”

Lila let out a light laugh. “It sounds like it!” She let herself smile for a moment longer before her expression sombered. “Listen, Mylene…”

Mylene looked up at her wide-eyed. “Yes, Lila?”

She gave her a soft smile. “I just wanted to let you know, I think you’re beautiful, no matter what Marinette says. Ok?”

Confusion seized Mylene’s features. “Marinette? What did Marinette say?”

Lila let her expression jump into surprize and she took a quick look around. “Oh, nothing really, just… nothing. I just wanted to let you know that.” Lila smiled again. “It was great talking to you Mylene, see you in class!” She waved and walked off, but Mylene didn’t notice. She was still staring into her locker, a look of fear and betrayal on her face. 

A sinister smile overtook Lila’s face. The plan was going perfectly.

* * *

 

The rest of this part of the plan was pathetically easy to execute. Over the next few weeks, she mentioned to Alix that she was “so much faster than Marinette said” and to Nathanial that “She couldn’t believe Marinette didn’t like his art”. The seeds of doubt were planted, and Lila had barely had to do anything. When she heard Marinette tell Alya that she couldn’t hang out one Tuesday because she had to help with a huge bakery order, Lila knew she had everything she needed to see out the final stages of her plan. Soon, no one in this sad excuse for a school would ever want to talk to Marinette Dupain-Cheng ever again.

She just had to wait for the right moment.

* * *

 

The right moment came that Thursday in the middle of class. Marinette had left near the beginning of class and hadn’t come back for a while as she was known to do, and Ms. Bustier had left them to work on a worksheet while she went to the bathroom about a minute ago. The only sound coming from the class was the hurried scratch of pencils on boring worksheets. If she was going to do anything it had to be now.

But she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was forgetting something. She went through her checklist in her head. Ms. Bustier? Gone. Marinette? Missing. Classmates? All here except for Chloe, but that was fine because Chloe already hated Marinette. Lila shook her head. She wasn’t forgetting anything, she was just paranoid. It was now or never.

She stood up.

“Hey, guys?”

The pencils stopped in an instant and everyone looked up at her. Nino was the first to speak. “What is is Lila?”

She took a deep breath and schooled her face into a look of apprehension. This wouldn’t work if they didn’t completely buy into it, but if she did this right, she might end up actually taking the now empty seat in the row behind Nino. 

“I… I wasn’t exactly sure whether or not to tell you guys this… I mean, I wanted to, I thought it was the right thing to do but, she’s so nice to everyone, and I wasn’t sure if you’d even believe me so-”

“Lila!” Alya had stood up amidst her rambelling. “Just tell us already!”

Nino shushed her and geastured to Lila to continue. Lila allowed herself to take this as an invitation to make her way down the stairs to the front of the class. When she got there she turned around and faced the class, still looking like the scared little girl she wanted them to believe she was.

“Ok, but you have to promise you’ll hear me out ok? I can understand why you might not believe me but you need to at least listen, ok?”

The whole class nodded.

“Ok.” Lila took one last deep breath in. This was the moment of truth. “Marinette has been talking about you guys behind your backs.”


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lila tells the class exactly what "Marinette" thinks of them.

“Marinette has been talking about you guys behind your backs.”

The class exploded into chatter. Mylene started talking to Alix, Ivan, and Sabrina, Max started talking to Markov, and Rose and Juleka started to quietly discuss amongst themselves(but honestly, how quiet can they really be, when Rose sounds like an actual chipmunk). Nathaniel stayed silent, look over his sketches like he was trying to remember what gave them light in the first place. Kim just seemed to not understand what she meant. Alya and Nino were skeptical.

“Wait wait wait,” Nino said, trying to get the class back under control. “What do you mean Marinette has been talking about us behind our back?”

“Just that. She’s been talking shit about you while you’re not there.”

Alya chimed in. “Marinette? Our Marinette?”

Lila gave a small chuckle. “Do you know another Marinette?”

Kim was getting impatient. “Well what has she been saying?”

Lila tried to mask her internal glee and look apprehensive. “Well, I’m not sure if I should tell you…”

This time everyone spoke with one voice. “Just tell us!”

A hint of a smile crept through. “Well ok, If you say so…”

She looked at Kim. “Well, she said your body is that big because it needed to make room for your ego and yet it still doesn’t fit. She said Nathaniel’s drawings look like they were made by an uninspired 5 year old. She called Max a dumb robot, Ivan a gorilla, Nino a sad excuse for a DJ, Sabrina a slave, Rose an ugly chipmunk, Mylene just plain ugly, and she said Alix was unathletic. She even said that you guys shouldn’t have retaken the class picture because Juleka didn’t add anything to the other ones anyway.”

The class went silent as they took this in. Alix seemed ready to punch someone’s face in, but everyone else just seemed shocked and hurt that their favorite classmate would say something like that about them. Rose had started to cry. The air was filled with a blend of sadness, anger, betrayal, and desperation that mixed to create a kind of unsustainable tension that Lila lived for. It was like watching the fall of an empire.

Unlike her gullible classmates, Alya wasn’t sold yet. “Why would she say this all to you? You guys don’t hang out, and from what she’s told me she’s not your biggest fan.”

Lila plastered an innocent look on her face and went in for the kill. “We’ve hung out a few times after school. Most recently we hung out Tuesday, and that’s when she told me you’re just a wannabe journalist and bragged that she duped you all the time by telling you she had a big order at the bakery. After that I decided I just had to say something. It’s not fair to you.”

Alya didn’t have a response to this. Her mouth gaped like a fish as she tried to find a defense for her best friend. In the end, she just sat down and pulled out her phone.

The class had erupted into pandamonium again. Alix was shouting something along the lines of “how could she do this!”, Ivan had gone over to sit with Mylene while also glaring daggers at Marinette’s seat, and Juleka was trying to comfort Rose while wiping away a few stray tears of her own.

It was beautiful.

“Wait a minute, guys, do we actually believe this?” Nino was standing again, trying to settle everyone down. “Marinette is one of the nicest people any of us have ever met, she’s helped _all_ of us from time to time, I mean for God’s sake, she’s our class preside-”

“I texted Marinette’s parents.”

She wasn’t speaking loudly, but Alya’s voice grabbed everyone’s attention and Lila felt the blood drain from her face. God dammit, she should’ve just kept her story general. Sure there’s less credibility, but there’s less of a chance of _this_ happening and now she was probably going to have to change schools all over again and-

“There was no big order at the bakery.”

That was when the class really lost it. They all seemed ready to grab pitchforks and torches and storm the Dupin-Cheng residence. Even Nino was at a loss for how to feel. As for Lila, she found she could breathe again. Marinette had actually lied to Alya? Oh, this was better than she could’ve ever hoped for.

That was when Marinette decided to show up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's chapter 2! Sorry it's so short, I don't think any of my chapters will have much more than 1,000 words, which can likely be attributed to my subpar storytelling haha. It has a lot of plot though, which will hopefully make up for it. Also, chapter titles might change eventually, when I come up with an exact plan for how long this fic will be, but for now they are going to be "Chapter one" and "Chapter two", so sorry about that.  
> Anyway, please leave you thoughts in the comments and love in the kudos! <3


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette finally shows up

It had not been a great day for Marinette Dupain-Cheng. She had woken up late, gotten to school late, turned in the homework late, and then she had to leave for half an hour to deal with an acid-spitting mouse-pooping akuma across Paris. She ran back to class as fast as she could but she knew she wasn’t going to be able to find an excuse for missing over half an hour of class that Ms. Bustier would accept. So basically, she was screwed.

When she got to class, she waited outside the door for half a second trying to catch her breath, but realizing it was to no avail, she burst in and started her string of apologies.

“I’m so sorry Ms. Bu-”

And that’s when she noticed her class.

It was chaos, to say the least. Only like, 3 people were in their original seats, and everyone else was gathered in clumps around a few sets of desks. Alix was raging, her face close to the same shade of read as Nathanial’s hair. Ivan had himself wrapped almost protectively around Mylene, and Rose was… crying? Ms. Bustier was nowhere to be found, and her place was taken by Lila. Worst of all, now they were all looking at her.

“What’s going on?”

Alix was the first to speak. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

Her voice was laced with hatred, and in her eyes burned a hurt Marinette had never seen on her before. Marinette took a step back. “What?”

Alix started walking towards her, words boiling in anger barely contained. “Who. The hell. Do you think you are?”

Marinette was scrambling. What did she do? What should she say?  **_What the hell was happening?!?!?_ ** “Alix, I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking about”

Alix scoffed. “I’m  _ talking _ about all the things you said about us. Calling me unathletic, Nathaniel a bad artist, Rose an ugly chipmunk?!?”

Ivan chimed in. “Not to mention all that stuff you said about Mylene.”

Rose piped up. “I think you were meanest to Julika. Why would you say you thought the class picture was better without her?”

“What?” Marinette couldn’t keep the panic out of her voice. “I didn’t say any of this stuff, I would never! Nathaniel, I think you’re an amazing artist, Rose, you’re so pretty, Julika, I like our other photos so much better, I don’t know why any of you would think-”

She stopped when she met Lila’s eyes, and watched as everything fell into place with astounding clarity. “You.” She raised a finger to point at Lila who was acting offended by the accusation. “You did this.”

Lila let a small smile sour her innocent act. “This wasn’t me. You did this all yourself.”

Marinette turned back to the class in a last ditch effort to find some support. She stopped when she spotted her best friend. “Alya! Please tell them I would never say anything like this!”

Alya met her eyes. She looked defeated, like someone had taken her light and shut it off, leaving her in the darkness. “Marinette, I texted your parents. There was no order on Tuesday.”

Marinette felt the breath leave her chest once more. Tuesday she was with Chat meeting with the mayor and Officer Roger to create a more solid plan on how to keep civilians out of harm’s way during akuma attacks. But she couldn’t tell Alya that. She couldn’t tell Alya anything. She looked to another classmate.

“Nino?”

Nino was speechless looking back and forth between her and Alya. There was nothing he could say.

She looked at her classmates. “Anyone?”

But they were all looking at her like she was their enemy. She had no friends in this room right now.

She felt like she couldn’t breathe. All she could do was whisper an apology and flee the room. She barely registered the fact that she bumped into someone coming into the classroom as she ran out, and she couldn’t hear that same someone shouting her name as she ran down the stars.

* * *

 

Everything was going perfectly. Everyone was turning on Marinette, and Marinette had no solution. She knew Lila had caused it but she couldn’t prove it, which gave Lila the chance to gloat just a little. She was debating what her next move should be now that she *won* when someone entered the class just as Marinette was running away.

Adrien.

She had forgotten about Adrien.

How could she forget about Adrien? She had a crush on him for god’s sake. He was pretty and perfect and a model and  _ the only person who knew about her not-so-truthful tendencies other than Marinette. _

Shit.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Sorry for the delay, I was out of town over the weekend. I know the chapter is short, but I think the plot makes up for it. Poor Marinette, she deserves so much better. As always, leave your thoughts in the comments and love in the kudos!  
> Nerdychild


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrien finally shows up!!!

Adrien’s day had been fine. He had eaten a nice breakfast in the morning. Marinette had shown up late, which meant he got to say good morning to her as she walked by his desk. However, the akuma had been less great, especially because he detransformed right at the site all the way across town which meant he had to wait for Plagg to recharge before he could get back to school. He knew he was really, really late getting back from lunch, but he wasn’t sure how much that mattered when he heard yelling coming from his classroom. He was opening the door to see if he could help cool things down to avoid another akuma attack when Marinette practically bulldozed him as she was running away. He tried calling after her, but she didn’t seem to hear him. He turned to the class, more confused than he was on the first day of school.

“What is going on? Is Marinette ok?”

Alix scoffed. “Oh yeah, she’s fine. Just upset that she got called out on her bullshit.”

Adrien was taken aback. Marinette, the nicest person in this class being called out on bullshit? What could Marinette have possibly done to warrant this reaction? “Bullshit? What are you talking about?”

Lila was as white as a sheet, but she pasted a sweet smile on her face as she walked up to him and grabbed his arm to pull him away. “Adrien, sweetie, let’s talk about this outside, ok?”

Adrien shrugged her off, getting a sinking feeling about what had transpired. “No, Lila, I’d rather you just tell me in here.”

Lila shrugged, her smile tight. “Oh, ok then, I just thought you would prefer it. We just found out Marinette has been saying some not so nice things about our classmates.”

“She called Rose ugly!”

“And Max dumb!”

“And she said Nino was bad DJ!”

Adrien felt that sinking feeling burrow deeper. “And you heard this all from Lila?”

“Yeah!”

“Ok.” Adrien ran his hands through his hair. “Ok. Oh god, oh fuck, oh shit.”

What was he supposed to say? What could he do? He was trying to take the high road, cut Lila some slack and teach her to be truthful with kindness, but it didn’t seem to be working! He had studied with her even though he knew she was a liar, tried to help her make connections without lies, even talked to her about it as Chat Noir, but none of it had made any difference. Now she’s pulling this shit, trying to manipulate the _whole class_ into hating Marinette--

Oh god.

_Marinette_.

Marinette, class president, amatuer designer, and _sweetest person Adrien had ever met_ , had just run from the class sobbing because all of her friends had turned on her. Now she was who knows where, upset, alone, and possibly even vulnerable to akuma, because Lila decided her popularity was more important than Marinette’s well being.

To the rest of the class, it seemed like Adrien had lost it. His hair war no longer neat and tame like his father made sure it was every time he stepped outside of his house, and he was muttering curse words to himself like a panicked evil scientist. Suddenly his head shot up.

“Oh god,” he breathed, “this is my fault.”

The thought shook him to his core. _He_ caused this. If he had let Marinette continue trying to inform the class of Lila’s tendency to lie, they would’ve known that she wasn’t to be trusted and she wouldn’t have been able to destroy Marinette. Even if they hadn’t believed her, Marinette would still be able to at least point out that she’d been saying Lila was a liar from the beginning, and the class might feel more inclined to doubt Lila’s story.

But instead, he had silenced her, told her that she should sacrifice her integrity to make sure _Lila_ didn’t suffer. He hadn’t cared about how Marinette felt. He hadn’t cared about the fact that he was asking her to lie to all of her friends. He hadn’t cared about _Marinette_.

And now she was paying for it dearly, while Lila didn’t have a changed bone in her body.

 

Nino wasn’t exactly sure how he felt about all of this. He’d known Marinette since they were kids - toddlers, actually - and he knew Marinette would _never_ say anything like what Lila was claiming she was saying to Lila. Well, she wouldn’t say those things to anyone, but especially not Lila, someone Marinette wasn’t even a huge fan of. She’d stopped claiming everything Lila had said was a lie, but they weren’t friends. In fact, he’d go so far as to say Marinette acted entirely disengaged around Lila, which didn’t exactly support the idea that she was going out of her way to talk shit about everyone in the class with _Lila_ specifically. But then, when Alya actually asked her parents if there was a big order on Tuesday and they said no…It just didn’t add up.

So Nino was planning on staying mostly silent until he figured out what the hell was going on. But then Adrien walked in and immediately started blaming himself, and since that boy has a guilt complex the size of Paris, Nino knew he had to say something. He started walking towards Adrien. “Adrien, whatever Marinette did wasn’t your fault-”

Adrien cut him off, eyes filling with tears. “No Nino you don’t understand, I _knew_!”

Nino frose midstep, his mind unable to grasp the importance at what his best friend had just said. “Adrien, what are you talking about.”

Lila kept a smile frozen on her face as she spoke through her teeth. “Adrien, think about what you’re about to say.”

Adrien took a deep breath and furiously wiped his eyes, tring to get his emotions under control. He looked back at Nino, pointedly avoiding Lila’s gaze. Panic and guilt still evident in his voice, he finally revealed the truth. “Lila has been lying to you since she got here. She lied about knowing Ladybug, she lied about knowing Jagged Stone, she lied about her wrist and her hearing and about being with Prince Ali.” He took another deep breath and looked at the rest of the class. “I only knew she was lying because Ladybug confronted her while I was there. Marinette…” He tried to think about how she figured it out, but could only shake his head. “... I don’t know how she figured it out, but she did. And she tried to tell you but --” He stopped and he dropped his head in shame. Nino felt the blood drain from his face.

“But _what_ , Adrien?”

Adrien took in a shaky breath and looked back up, eyes drowning in regret. “I just thought it might be better if we taught her to be better without exposing her to everyone.”

Alix was fuming. “So you thought the better solution was to let her lie to us 24/7?”

Adrien’s head shot up. “I didn’t know she was going to do this! I couldn’t have possibly thought--” He shook his head, trying to clear his muddled brain, and looked straight at Lila. “It never crossed my mind that _anyone_ could do this.”

And with that, he turned and ran to find Marinette.

Lila half-spluttered out a rebuttal at Adrien’s retreating figure, but he didn’t hear or care. She turned back to the class, praying for either their mercy or their infamous stupidity. She didn’t care which one she got, as long as it was one of the two. But as she scanned the class for any shred of pity, hope, question, _anything_ , all she could find was anger and betrayal. The room was dead silent. She decided to try her luck with reasoning with the sheep like part of their brain. She pasted an innocent look on her face and started damage control.

“Gosh, I have no idea what I did to make him lie like that! I’ve always been so kind to him. I hope he’s ok.”

Nothing changed. No questions arose, no devil’s advocates appeared. The betrayal stayed, and if anything, the anger grew.

“Come on guys,” she said with a little laugh, trying to hide her panic, “you don’t actually believe any of that do you?”

Nothing. She felt her facade slip.

“Guys?”

Silence, for 1 beats, 2 beats, 3 bea-.

A scrape of a chair.

Everyone’s head snapped towards the sound. Ivan was standing. Without permission, Lila felt her expression morph into something hopeful, pleading. All she needed was one person to believe her, or even forgive her, and the rest of the class would follow. They were like sheep that way. She just needed one, and though Ivan wasn’t the most vocal person in class, right now he had the power to sway everyone’s opinion, is he just said something, _anything_ in her favor.

But all he did was look at her, for 2, long, suspenseful seconds.

And then he walked out.

After him was Mylene. Then Alix. Then Nathaniel. Then Kim and Juleka and Rose and Max and Sabrina and Nino and finally Alya. Lila began to panic.

“Guys? Guys?!” She knew her face was involuntarily screwed into something resembling fear but she didn’t care. She just needed something, anything to get back even a fraction of the popularity and respect she had before this mess started. “Please, guys, I’m not lying, I swear, I’m not a liar!”

But her pleas fell on deaf ears. None of her classmates even acknowledged that she had spoken.

Alya, the last one to leave the class, stopped when she reached the door. For Lila, a glimmer of hope managed to catch the sun for just a moment. But it was dashed the moment Lila saw into her eyes. Full of betrayal, her brown speckled eyes showed no possibility of forgiveness. Lila closed her eyes and prepared herself for the beat down.

Alya shook her head. “I can’t believe I ever trusted you.”

And with that, she walked out. And Lila was truly alone.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO SORRY I'm so late posting! I kind of forgot about it last weekend until 9:00 Sunday and then this week has just been crazy, but I went home sick today so I had time to update! In return, here is my longest update yet! Which... isn't that long but it has a lot of plot. I also know a lot of people are going to be happy Adrien FINALLY GREW A SPINE.  
> ... Anyway. I hope you liked it! Leave your thoughts in the comments and love in the kudos!


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrien finds Marinette

Marinette couldn’t breathe.

She had run out of the classroom as fast as she could, trying to escape the tension and the lies and her world ending as she knew it but the second she got to the bottom of the stairs she crumpled, trying to catch her breath but she _couldn’t_ because there wasn’t enough air and everything was wrong and her lungs weren’t working and all of her friends hated her and she **_couldn’t breathe._** ** _  
_**

_“Who the hell do you think you are?”_

_“You called Rose an ugly chipmunk!”_

_“Why would you say you thought the class picture was better without Juleka?”_

Someone(maybe Tikki?) was saying something about calming down and taking a deep breath but how _could_ she when she had just lost nearly everything she held dear and _no one believed her_ and she was all alone and she couldn’t breathe-

_“You called me unathletic, Nathaniel a bad artist-”_

_“There was no order on Tuesday.”_

**_“Who the hell do you think you are?”_ **

How could she face any of them ever again when they thought she was an awful human being who hated her class _oh my god they’d never speak to her again-_

_“Where were you Marinette?”_

_“How could you say that Marinette?”_

_“Marinette!”_

“ ** _Marinette!_ **”

“ ** _Marinette you have to calm down you’re going to get akumatized!_ **”

 **_Holy crap_ ** _she could get akumatized._ Marinette looked up to see Tikki flitting worriedly in front of her face. She tried to take a deep breath, but it ended up being a shaky gasp that just _choked_ her. She tried again but she just felt like she was being suffocated so she went back to just doing her best to get air however possible but she couldn’t panic because if she panicked she’d get akumatized and if she got akumatized Ladybug would be gone and Paris would be destroyed and Hawkmoth so she couldn’t panic she **could not panic** -

“Marinette **please** just breathe I can’t hold off an akuma- oh no!”

Marinette vaguely registered Tikki ducking out of sight, but she was just trying to focus on calming down and _breathing_ and reminding herself that there was a solution to this, but nothing was working and she couldn’t stop crying because she couldn’t think of a way this ended without her losing everything-

“Mari-”

There was no solution to this. Alya thought she was a liar and Nathaniel thought she didn’t like his art and Juleka thought she hated her and she had no proof none of these things were true-

“-nette!”

Someone was calling her name, but it wasn’t Tikki. Chat? It sounded like Chat. But he was saying the wrong name, so it couldn’t be Chat, which meant it was one of her classmates who now hated her because of things she _didn’t say_ and oh my god she needed to _breathe_ -

Suddenly someone’s pants were in her line of vision. She looked up to see Adrien kneeling in front of her, face panicked. His hands were flitting around her rather uselessly and it looked like he was saying something but she couldn’t figure out what and she just couldn’t think-

“Marinette, **_breathe!_ **”

She took a shaky breath is but it still wasn’t _enough._ She tried to take in another but he shook his head.

“Hold it.”

His voice was soft yet filled with emotion, utterly compelling yet so afraid. She held her breath and he counted to four, after which she released. She tried to take another frantic breath in but he stopped her. “Squeeze my hands, and do it again.”

She looked down and tried to focus on her hands. With each breath she could feel her heart rate getting a little slower and her lungs feeling a little less foreign. When she finally felt like she _might_ be able to speak again, she looked up at Adrien, eyes still glistening with tears.

“Adrien, I- I- I didn’t- I didn’t- didn’t-” She clenched her eyes shut in frustration. She needed to explain to him, she needed him to understand that she didn’t say any of those things, that she would _never_ say any of those things, but she couldn’t get the goddamn words out! She tried again, but Adrien was shaking his head.

“It’s ok Marinette, I know.”

She looked back up at him, eyes refilling with tears and portraying a desperation and pain Adrien had never seen in her before. “They- they all- they all- ha- ha-”

He rushed to spare her from having to struggle to say any more. “No no Marinette, they don’t hate you! I explained everything.”

She looked confused. “Bu- But- But Lila?”

He shook his head. “She crossed a line. I couldn’t let her destroy you for her own gain.”

Her eyes watered and without a moment's hesitation Adrien scooped her up in his arms and held her close as she cried. In that moment she seemed so small, and it sunk in again _just how much_ he had hurt her. Her world had been cracked and distorted in a way only time could fix, but time was hard to come by, and passed much to slowly. She would have to live through days and weeks and months where she wasn’t ok and she would have to work for hours upon hours to build herself a community like the one so mercilessly destroyed and this all could’ve been avoided if Adrien had just _spoken up_ when he had the chance. He couldn’t stop himself from trying to communicate everything, his apologies, his anger, and his promise to never, _never_ leave her without a friend from this day forward, with his embrace, but it crossed his mind that she might not get all of his messages, so he resolved to tell her all of it again, when she was feeling better.

 

Adrien didn’t know how long they sat there, holding on to each other like their lives depended on it, but as Marinette’s sobs started to subside, a bit of movement caught his eye. Gently, he lifted his head off her shoulder to see their whole class watching watching them from above. Adrien didn’t have the time or energy to try to decipher each of their individual expressions, but they all shared a common pain. It was pulsing, desperate, but to Adrien, it felt like there was a wall between him and his class. Their torment was reaching out, desperate to be seen, but it didn’t quite reach the duo at the bottom of the steps, leaving a cold, stale feeling in the air.

Marinette started to pull away soon after he lifted his head, possibly taking it as a sign to seperate. Adrien immediately directed his attention towards her. Her eyes were red and puffy, but her tears had dried and her breathing seemed a little more even. He let out a little sigh of relief and gave her a small smile.

“Are you feeling a little better?”

She gave a small nod as her eyes widened as they drifted to his tear stained clothes. “Oh god, I ruined your shirt!”

A little chuckle escaped him. “It’s no big deal Mari, really. It’s not like I don’t have plenty more at home.”

They shared a little laugh, but all at once Marinette looked exhausted. Adrien grabbed her hand. “You want to go home?”

She nodded, and he helped her up, after sparing one last look at his classmates. He saw Nino breathe a sigh of relief, then give Adrien a small nod of thanks. Adrien stiffly nodded back.

He turned back and helped Marinette to standing. She seemed ok, but he grabbed her hand anyway. And with a small smile, they started to walk out of the school.

 

She didn’t look back to see the class, and Adrien didn’t tell her to. He decided it was better that way.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End!
> 
> KIDDING!
> 
> It could be, but where's the fun in that ;). This isn't my best work, but I'm not a good enough writer to actually improve it so it is what it is. I won't be able to update for about another week and a half, because I'm going out of the country for spring break, but I will do my best to update ASAP. 
> 
> I also wanted to express my appreciation for everyone who has commented on this work. It honestly makes my day every time I get an email about a comment, because it means someone actually likes my writing enough to feel the need to respond to it. Thank you so much for taking the time to do that, it really means the world to me. 
> 
> Leave your thoughts and the comments and love in the Kudos! Thanks again!


	6. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter in which the author uses some secondary characters to explain away plot holes.

Caline Bustier’s day had, in a word, sucked.

This wasn’t a word she used lightly - she is a teacher after all, and she has to set an example for her students, even if that means unending positivity in the face of less than perfect situations - but honestly, she was too tired to care. She hadn’t felt great all morning, and had resolved to make it through the day and take a 5 hour nap when she got home. This meant she’d have to postpone a date with her girlfriend, but since she was struggling to stay standing for more than 2 minutes at a time, she knew Danielle would understand. Then, during lunch, there was an Akuma attack, which wouldn’t have affected her given that it was all the way across Paris if she _hadn’t_ known that meant two of her star students would on the front lines, and likely returning to school late. This was fine, it had happened before and she knew how to deal with it, it was just… frustrating.

But her day hadn’t truly sucked until after lunch(which she did not eat, mind you). She had been going through her lesson plan, waiting for Marinette and Adrien to show up so she could act like she was upset they were late while surreptitiously making sure they were 100% intact, when suddenly she felt _awful_ . She quickly handed out a worksheet that one of the other teachers had so _kindly_ gifted her in case she needed to “spice up her lesson plan” (not that these worksheets actually accomplished that goal, until Alix and Kim inevitably started a paper airplane throwing contest or paper ball throwing contest or some sort of other contest) and ran to the bathroom. She barely made it in the stall before she emptied the contents of her stomach into the grimey, public school toilet.

She stayed in the bathroom for probably about half an hour, occasionally dry heaving. She texted Danielle to inform her she would **not** be able to make it tonight, and when she finally felt well enough to leave the bathroom, she immediately made her way to the principal's office to inform him that he’d need to find a sub for her class.

So yeah, her day had sucked. Which was why she was now sitting on the front steps of the school trying and failing to find the energy to get up and get to her car so she could go _home_ and _sleep_ . But the car was _so far away_ and it took _so long_ to get home it seemed like it would be _so much easier_ to just stay here, on the steps of the place she gave everything to. This school was her life. She had laughed here, cried here, yelled here, hell, even gotten akumatized here. Would it it be to big a jump to just sleep here as well?

Her phone buzzed in her hand. She glanced down at it.

**Danielle: Pourquoi ne m'as-tu pas dit que tu étais malade? Je suis sur le chemin de l'école, je te conduis à la maison. J'ai de la soupe :)**

Caline looked up from her phone just in time to see a silver used 2014 Citroën pulling up to the front to the school, and a tired smile made its way onto her face. _Danielle_. She took a deep breath and with a new found strength, got up from her home on the steps and made her way to her girlfriend’s car.

Maybe today wasn’t to bad after all.

* * *

 

M. Damocles couldn’t find a sub.

There were no teachers on break, no substitutes waiting for a call, there wasn’t even a garbage man outside who could take over Caline’s class.

Which left only M. Damocles.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like teaching students - he wasn’t a principal so he could _avoid_ being around kids - it was just that… he didn’t do it often, and it wasn’t like Caline had left a detailed lesson plan. Nevertheless, he adjusted his suit and straightened his shoulders, ready to give these students the best education he could. After all, he wasn’t The Owl for nothing!

He wasn’t expecting all of the students to be seated outside of the classroom.

To be fair, it wasn’t necessarily unexpected either. Caline had been gone for over half an hour, the fact that the students didn’t migrate farther during that time was close to a miracle. No, the really unexpected thing was the silence that surrounded them.

He knew students. Students were rambunctious little creatures that wanted to be anywhere but school. They wanted freedom, they wanted fun, and if they were ever left without supervision, they took the ounce of freedom and ran with it. Leave them alone for even 5 minutes and they’ll be tearing down the walls. Of course, they were kids, this is how they were supposed to act and M. Damocles wouldn’t have it any other way, even if it meant he had to sacrifice a portion of his sanity for them. That’s why he got into education after all.

But more importantly, he knew _these_ students. And these students were everywhere, all of the time. Nino was a DJ, so in love with his art that he even got akumatized into a DJ. Alix and Kim were in an eternal battle of strength, never ceasing their quest to be the best. Alya _ran the ladyblog_ , and if she wasn’t talking about Ladybug she was talking about Chat Noir, or Rena Rouge, or Hawkmoth, or whatever other crazy theory she had come up with that day. Rose _could not stop talking_ about _love_ , and her girlfriend… well he wasn’t sure what Rose’s girlfriend’s deal was but she talked to Rose. These students wouldn’t know the meaning of quiet if it slapped her in the face.

But yet, none of them were talking. The silence was all encompassing, somehow bleeding into the very air he breathed. He looked at these students, and all he felt was loss.

He wasn’t exactly sure how to proceed. He’d never dealt with a situation like this before, hell, he wasn’t even sure what the situation was. He decided the first step was breaking the silence.

“Students?”

10 heads snapped towards him. Suddenly Alya’s front lip was trembling, her eyes were filling up, and she was running to him. In a moment she was there, sobbing into his shirt.

_What._

After freezing for a second, he hesentintly patted her back, offering as comforting gesture as he could manage. It had been a while since he’d done… this.

As Alya sobbed, he looked up at the remaining students. They were all looking to him for guidance, for comfort, despite the fact that he knew nothing about the situation. He wasn’t Caline; she was much better at encouraging mutual love and support between students, he stuck to the discipline side of things. It was what he was good at.

Maybe it would be best if he got them back into the classroom, he could figure out where to go from there.

“All right kids, let’s get back into class.”

Alya looked up at him, breathing still far from even. “But M. Damocles- Marinette- and Lila-”

He shook his head. “Let’s just get back into class.”

Alya nodded and dropped her head. Shakily, they all stood up and and made their way into the classroom, and without so much as a snarky comment, they walked to their seats. Once they were all seated, they looked to him expectantly. Expecting what? He didn’t know. He couldn’t, he didn’t have a clue what was going on, let alone how to help these students! He resolved to discuss the situation with Caline when she returned, but until then… Well, they just had to press on.

“Ok class, please open you French History books to page 373.”

The class did what what they were asked without complaint. M. Damocles nodded, satisfied. Yes, when Caline got back they would discuss, but until then, they would be fine.

Just fine.

 

If anyone noticed Lila’s absence, they didn’t say anything about it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry this took so long! My life has been crazy lately, and I didn't have time to edit this. I hate writing M. Damocles; I can't figure out if he hates his students or loves his students. Love Mme Bustier though(she is a lesbian you can not convince me otherwise)!!!! Btw, the translation for her text was: Why didn't you tell me you were sick? I'm on my way to the school, I'm driving you home. I have soup :)  
> My french isn't great, but I'm pretty sure that's right. In other news, I finally committed to college! A day before the deadline XD. Hopefully I'll have more time to write now that I'm not stressing about college!  
> Anyway, thank you so much for sticking with this story. I think there's only going to be one more chapter in The Plan, but I might write a sequel, we'll see. That should be posted in the next few days(actually this time). Thank you again, and remember to leave your thoughts in the comments and love in the kudos! <3


	7. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lila is actually Satan

Lila was alone.

All of her dumb classmates had left, and were probably begging for Marinette’s forgiveness as Lila sat there, alone, and seething.

God, she was so angry.

She was angry at Marinette for corrupting Adrien, she was angry at Adrien for being corrupted, she was angry at her classmates for believing them, she was angry at her father for leaving her and her mother for never being around and the world for hating her.

It really shouldn’t be a surprise that Hawkmoth sent a butterfly her way.

_“Lila Rossi, my star student.”_

She sat up straight. “Hawkmoth.”

He chuckled sinisterly. _“Yes Lila. Your friends have abandoned you, but I can help you win back their affections, with the added bonus of destroying Ladybug. What do you say?”_

Lila took a deep breath. “No.”

The creepy old man on the other end of the fly phone was not prepared for this. _“I’m sorry?”_

Lila shook her head. “No, being akumatized right now wouldn’t do me any good. They hate my guts, me being akumatized would only increase their resentment towards me. I need to wait a few days, let their anger dull a bit, and then show them how upset I am.”

Hawkmoth was at a loss. _“But, if you take Ladybug’s miraculous then they will worship you for eternity!”_

Lila rolled her eyes. “I’m all for that, but what if I don’t? You don’t exactly have the best track record. I’ll do my best when the time comes, but for now I need to prepare for the worst. You understand, right?”

Hawkmoth didn’t exactly know what to say. _“Are you... Sure?”_

Lila nodded decisively. “Yes. Can you come back on like, Tuesday? I’ll think up a really interesting persona between now and then.”

Hawkmoth nodded, starting to like the possibilities this left him with. _“Alright Lila, I will see you on Tuesday. Farewell for now.”_

“Wait!”

Hawkmoth paused, wondering if she had changed her mind. _“Yes?”_

“Could you quickly give me powers that will get me out of here without being seen? I don’t want to see those kids’ dumbass faces when they see me.”

Hawkmoth bit his tongue, already regretting striking up a deal with this petulant child. _“Lila that’s not how it works. I can’t just give and take powers at will!”_

Lila scoffed. “I’m sorry, isn’t that exactly what you can do?”

Lila could hear the man sigh, but without a word she was transformed into a wisp of what she once was. With a nod of thanks, she grabbed her stuff, and made her way home, invisible to friends and enemies alike.

 

**_To be continued..._ **

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... Maybe.  
> Depends on how much energy I have. I think I'm going to focus on some other(unposted) works in progress for now, at least until the school year is over. Then we will see.
> 
> I really hope you enjoyed this fic! I'm not a great writer, but I'm happy with how it turned out. I bet in a year I'll look back on this and hate it, but for now, I'm going to live in ignorant bliss XD. Thank you so much for all of your support, every comment absolutely made my day, and I'm sure I wouldn't have finished this without everyone's enthusiasm.
> 
> Thank you again, and remember, leave your thoughts in the comments and love in the kudos!!! <3

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! Hope you enjoyed the first chapter! I'm going to try and update this every couple of days, so hopefully no one will get bored. Feel free to let me know what you think in the comments section! Constructive criticism is always appreciated. Thanks for reading!


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